Friday, January 29, 2010

I am committed to learning how to better advocate for causes connected toward advancing the Good for the All! And, I am learning and gathering perspective already as a Carl Wilken's Fellow. Four days ago I wrote the following letter for local news publication with the Daily Oklahoman. I submitted too close to the date for the State of the Union address by President Barack Obama, two days ago, as a result, my letter did not get published. While the State of the Union is now two days in the past - I thought I would share the letter I sent as testimony to learning how to advocate and publish in Op-Ed or Editioral pages of local or national newspapers.

Here is what I wrote:

Partial previews of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union have been released, reporting that he will appeal specifically to the middle-class alongside issues involving health-care, war, and global terror.

With his speech scheduled on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Obama has the unique opportunity to be the first president to commit to abolish the most egregious of crimes: genocide.

The President has support from Americans to prevent genocide. According to a December 3 survey by Pew and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) comparing public attitudes with those of foreign policy elites, 58% of the public and 57% of CFR members support the use of force if an ethnic group in Africa were threatened by genocide.

Better than force to end genocide, prevention is easier, cheaper and constructs a more desirable future.

President Obama should make clear that efforts to prevent genocide need not be military, nor after violence erupts. The President can commit to advance diplomatic and financial efforts advancing good for all people.

President Obama should listen to his predecessors. It is reported that President Clinton’s greatest regret during his years in office involve his failure to act differently in 1994 to prevent “hundreds of thousands” of Rwandan deaths. President Bush lamented the failure to stop what his government called “genocide” in Darfur.

Now is the time for Obama to strategize a better future for the world, a future without genocide.